Projects
Determining the role of hepatic and circulatory Immune Cells on a single cell level in the Onset and Treatment of severe Alcoholic Hepatitis: The DICOTAH study. KU Leuven
Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is a leading cause of liver-related mortality worldwide. ALD cirrhosis may suddenly develop into a lifethreatening and distinct clinical syndrome termed severe alcoholic hepatitis (sAH), reaching a short-term mortality of 20% at 1 month. sAH is hallmarked by a marked pro-inflammatory milieu in the liver and the systemic circulation, making it plausible that immunological changes are the main drivers of its sudden ...
Single cell analysis of tumor endothelial cells during vessel co-option KU Leuven
Epigenetic drivers of human αβ and γδ T cell differentiation at the single cell level. Ghent University
The immune system is our body’s major defense mechanism against invading pathogens, as well as against tumor cells. One of the critical white blood cells that plays a central role in the immune system comprises T lymphocytes. They are generated from blood forming stem cells that undergo a series of discrete developmental stages within a specific organ called the thymus. This organ controls their proper development and results in the ...
Identification of the molecular drivers of ab vs. gd T cell development at single cell resolution in human Ghent University
ab and gd T cells have distinct roles in the immune system but arise from common precursors in the thymus. Many details about their development are incompletely understood; in particular, how and when the ab vs. gd fate decision occurs during human T cell development is still being debated. The Taghon lab recently demonstrated that thymocytes committing to the gd but not the ab lineage undergo pronounced changes in chromatin accessibility. ...
Single cell approaches for the study of early human T cell development Ghent University
T lymphocytes are important blood cells within the immune system and are generated in the thymus from seeding hematopoietic precursor cells. In this project, we wish to use single cell techniques to identify and characterize these immigrating precursor cells, as well as the first stages of human T cell development.
Single cell analysis of tumor endothelial cell genomic and transcriptomic heterogeneity KU Leuven
Tumor angiogenesis promotes tumor growth, but current anti-angiogenic treatments lack efficacy and suffer resistance, a formidable unmet medical problem with great societal impact. I hypothesize that the limited success of traditional anti-angiogenics relates to the fact that the angiogenesis field has used the wrong endothelial cell (EC) type for therapy development, i.e. normal ECs (NECs) instead of tumor ECs (TECs), which show genomic ...
The use of single cell RNA-sequencing to unravel which cell type is the main driver in the development of Biglycan-related thoracic aortic aneurysms. University of Antwerp
Smart hydrogels for single B cell mining: a smart approach to obtain fully-human antibodies KU Leuven
Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) are the biggest class of biopharmaceuticals used against cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. As the ability of the human immune system to generate highly specific mAb is unmatched by any man-made approach, several technologies have been developed to generate fully human (FH)-mAb. Among those, single B-cell screening has
emerged as a powerful technique. In this project, two KU Leuven groups will join ...
Study of the antifungal mode of action of plant defensins using single cell analysis KU Leuven
Yearly, invasive fungal infections (IFIs), such as candidemia and invasive aspergillosis, cause 1.7 million deaths worldwide and this number is still increasing, which can be mainly explained by the increase of the at-risk population, being immunocompromised patients, and the increased use of modern medical devices, such as implants and catheters. Mortality rates associated with IFIs are high (up to 50%) and the number of currently used ...